Origin

Since the Middle Ages hand has had the secondary meaning ‘a person’, as in farmhand or deckhand. All hands is the entire crew of a ship—the orders all hands on deck and all hands to the pump call upon all members of the crew, and now of any team, to assist. The phrase hand over fist also came from sailing. Originally it was hand over hand, describing the action of a sailor climbing a rope or hauling it in. By the 1820s the idea of speed had been extended to other contexts such as the rapid progress of a ship in pursuit of another, and soon after it was being used much more generally of any action done quickly. Nowadays, it is almost always making money that is done hand over fist. Horse racing gave us hands down. A jockey who won hands down was so certain of winning that he could lower his hands, relax his grip on the reins, and stop urging on his horse. A handle (Old English) gets its name because it is held in the hand. See also handsome